Hi guys,

Sorry for the delaaaaay...and thank you for the nice comments...appreciate them! And thanks for saying you love my voice Jen....I know you Americans like our English accents (so I hear anyway!) but we love a bit of American over here

Also thanks for sharing that it's quite normal for you to slip to 'lower' ranges (around 160-170hz) when talking to people you know really well....that's definitely helped put my mind at ease. The important thing, as we've reiterated, is that those ranges sound far softer than they did pre-op so I think I've finally got over those paranoias and will see how things develop. Although I would like to be able to maintain a nice 180-190hz range around people I know well too...but like everything, I'm sure it just requires practice and a conscious effort on our parts to not drop a little because we're so used to old habits.

It's my 2 month general convo start day next Monday but there have been days I've acted as if I had no limit to talking anyway...apart from the voice getting a little tired there haven't been any adverse affects and even a couple of hours of not talking would usually resolve it and seems to 'reset' it so it sounds fresh again very quickly! Luckily though as I currently work freelance I do have days where I can be totally silent at home which I'm sure is good in terms of giving my voice that well needed rest to continue it's healing a bit...although strangely I've found after a day or two of practically no speaking because I'm on my own...my voice can then seem like it's gone back a couple of steps and feels more limited with speaking range and volume...no doubt due to lack of practice...oh the irony!

Interestingly though yesterday and did a gentle lip triill to test my upper range and it peaked around 525 hz...somewhere around the c5 on the scale...which is such a relief..because when I last tested about 2 weeks ago, my upper range was shocking and felt soooooo gutted when i tried to sing along to quietly to a couple of songs - there was no chance I could hit any of the higher notes that I could get to easily pre-op...barely went over 400hz and even that felt like a struggle! So seems like it's improved a tonne..happy days. Once the general convo day arrives, I think I'll use that excel sheet that Abby kindly put together to keep track of range over the weeks after starting the voice exercises. Hopefully it'll improve lots more and look forward to seeing just how much upper range I (and others here) gain. If it's anything like Jen and others' experiences though, I'm staying positive.

Come next Monday I'll get onto recording another clip of perhaps some general convo...or perhaps a lil vid with a super cool dance routine like Liv .... ;p was impressed Liv, keep it up You're sounding great!

Gigi

This is nice... a thread which almost all of us had surgery at the same time so we can track the progress together

Girls, should we still use the "larynx raising" method to change the resonance? I recently sent Yeson a feedback recording and my F0 has exceeded 210 Hz (ori. 170)... but somehow it still sounds like a high pitch adolescent boy and I suspect it's because the resonance and tonal quality.

Should we still change apply the feminine techniques (resonance/articulation) besides the pitch?

I think definitely one should still use these techniques, just not the pitch raising. Originally I thought that pitch is the only thing that changes and all else still has to be done, but some people reported that at least the resonance wa snow easier to control and some of the male  voice parameters besides pitch are gone, but definitely some things have to be done still to make all the other aspects of the voice besides pitch sound feminine. No surgery can change your articulation, melody, intonation or anything in the prosody.

Quote from: alexiakk on August 23, 2014, 12:40:26 AMShould we still change apply the feminine techniques (resonance/articulation) besides the pitch?

Prosody, articulation, and resonance are all essential to the female speaking voice. Having a good base frequency and timbre is great but it would be as bare bones as driving a car with just a seat, chassis, and engine.

I find timbre of the voice is often confused with resonance: thicker timbre in the voice = more inherently masculine vocal tone at the same frequencies. That's why older women who speak in the lower baritone range (~A=110hz) are still readily clocked as female - their pitch may be lower, but the timbre is lighter. Timber exists in terms like thinner/thicker, lighter/heavier, and brighter/darker.

Resonance involves the relaxation and openness of the throat, soft palate, sinuses etc so that the harmonics of the voice will amplify and project via the natural structure of the head. In this, you will more essentially 'feel' the resonance of your voice as vibration throughout or in a particular area of the head - often upper sinuses, forehead, or sometimes the tippy-top of the head. I associate this with volume, beauty, and clarity of speech / singing.

As an example, reducing resonance would be akin to coating parts of a saxophone with rubber so the instrument vibrates less (in terms of the voice, let's use mucous as a comparison), whereas creating a lighter / thinner timbre or base frequency would be like using a thinner reed. Or, also heading to Yeson. I notice consistently that Yeson girls have a lighter timbre in addition to higher pitch.

I'm hoping to do Yeson soon myself. Having the locations of all the frequencies shift will certainly take some getting used to, but once it's mentally mapped I'd imagine the prosody/diction/inflection will be easier than before. Especially after wrestling this voice to submission daily :3

Quote from: Rachelicious on August 23, 2014, 07:47:19 AM
As an example, reducing resonance would be akin to coating parts of a saxophone with rubber so the instrument vibrates less (in terms of the voice, let's use mucous as a comparison), whereas creating a lighter / thinner timbre or base frequency would be like using a thinner reed. Or, also heading to Yeson. I notice consistently that Yeson girls have a lighter timbre in addition to higher pitch.

Thanks Rachel. I'm a Yeson post-op too
And yeah my voice did get higher and lighter, but the resonance is just not correct
and I don't know whether "raising the larynx" is the only way to change resonance 

I kinda want to find a vocal coach now as it seems like I can produce upper resonance, but only when I'm really forcing it (in terms of singing)...

Quote from: anjaq on August 23, 2014, 04:55:15 AM
I think definitely one should still use these techniques, just not the pitch raising. Originally I thought that pitch is the only thing that changes and all else still has to be done, but some people reported that at least the resonance wa snow easier to control and some of the male  voice parameters besides pitch are gone, but definitely some things have to be done still to make all the other aspects of the voice besides pitch sound feminine. No surgery can change your articulation, melody, intonation or anything in the prosody.

Yeah Anja, I think this is correct practically and physically
The Yeson website clearly says "Thus, by altering the larynx, pharynx, and the chambers which produce the sound, a male sounding voice can be changed to a female-sounding voice."

So I think it's probably a good time to start learning techniques - 

Much of what applies to beautiful singing voice will apply to feminizing resonance in general.

I'm not in the position to do a huge write-up right now, but a high soft palate - the part behind the roof of your mouth - is a great place to start, and from there relaxing the jaw and diaphragmatically supporting the breath. Keeping lots of space open in the back half of the mouth/throat by having it very relaxed.

Imagine your voice as a laser beam - with poor resonance, it has no chamber in the throat or mouth to amplify, and is diffused instead of focused. Practice trains the sinus/throat/mouth cavity to expand like a concert hall that creates a feedback loop with the sound. Good resonance feels more like it's coming from the oral chamber or above than the chest, with the whole interior & exterior of the mouth area super relaxed so they can vibrate at their best.

Some days are better than others based on swelling / dehydration / irritants / mucous, so vocal health factors in too. I definitely recommend coaching! I learned resonance through singing in chamber choir. Resonance is a special focus of good choirs because peoples' voices need to sound beautiful & blend together.

Also, choirs which happen to have a dearth of one particular voice type are usually eager to fill vacancies! A good option depending on your situation may be GALA Choruses. http://galachoruses.org/chorus-map

Quote from: Rachelicious on August 23, 2014, 04:27:47 PM
Much of what applies to beautiful singing voice will apply to feminizing resonance in general.

I'm not in the position to do a huge write-up right now, but a high soft palate - the part behind the roof of your mouth - is a great place to start, and from there relaxing the jaw and diaphragmatically supporting the breath. Keeping lots of space open in the back half of the mouth/throat by having it very relaxed.

Imagine your voice as a laser beam - with poor resonance, it has no chamber in the throat or mouth to amplify, and is diffused instead of focused. Practice trains the sinus/throat/mouth cavity to expand like a concert hall that creates a feedback loop with the sound. Good resonance feels more like it's coming from the oral chamber or above than the chest, with the whole interior & exterior of the mouth area super relaxed so they can vibrate at their best.

Some days are better than others based on swelling / dehydration / irritants / mucous, so vocal health factors in too. I definitely recommend coaching! I learned resonance through singing in chamber choir. Resonance is a special focus of good choirs because peoples' voices need to sound beautiful & blend together.

Also, choirs which happen to have a dearth of one particular voice type are usually eager to fill vacancies! A good option depending on your situation may be GALA Choruses. http://galachoruses.org/chorus-map

I really have to thank you Rachel. Yeah I think "having a beautiful singing voice" indeed helps feminine resonance a lot! What I do in singing is basically pulling up my chest voice, and pulling up even more when I go higher (so that sounds squeaky lol, even if it's cis-girls doing that)

I actually did send a famous vocal coach my recording and she said the first thing I'll have to learn is to produce a clear resonance without forcing so I think here I have the solution. I was probably affected by Christina Aguilera too much hahaha...

Yes - I think these things about resonance are all very true. My voice coach tries to get me to do at least most of them, but honestly I am sometimes afraid to really do them especially outside the lessons because I feel that while getting all that resonance to work makes my voice sound a lot more clear and healthy and it fixed my hourglass-glottis - it also seems to amplify those darker heavier timbres in my voice that I eliminated by forcing them away in the past. I know that this force is bad and so I know I have to let it go, but I am scared about the timbre. Some people seem to manage to get it changed with training only and have a clear feminine timbre - I am not sure how this works. Especially not without forcing it.

So hearing that a VFS can maybe change the timbre plus raise the pitch, even if it is not a lot, really gets my hopes up. If I can trust my voice to not have male timbres in it or low pitches that are really way low, I think I would have much more security to fully allow my resonance to play out loud and clear. So I really hope this is a correct assessment, Sadly most of the voice examples now are only 2 months post ob when the medication and/or Botox is still in effect, both of which also alter the timbre a lot, as I have heard recently.

So I really hope this is true - if it is, I am really close to booking the flight LOL

Quote from: anjaq on August 23, 2014, 06:43:56 PM
Yes - I think these things about resonance are all very true. My voice coach tries to get me to do at least most of them, but honestly I am sometimes afraid to really do them especially outside the lessons because I feel that while getting all that resonance to work makes my voice sound a lot more clear and healthy and it fixed my hourglass-glottis - it also seems to amplify those darker heavier timbres in my voice that I eliminated by forcing them away in the past. I know that this force is bad and so I know I have to let it go, but I am scared about the timbre. Some people seem to manage to get it changed with training only and have a clear feminine timbre - I am not sure how this works. Especially not without forcing it.

So hearing that a VFS can maybe change the timbre plus raise the pitch, even if it is not a lot, really gets my hopes up. If I can trust my voice to not have male timbres in it or low pitches that are really way low, I think I would have much more security to fully allow my resonance to play out loud and clear. So I really hope this is a correct assessment, Sadly most of the voice examples now are only 2 months post ob when the medication and/or Botox is still in effect, both of which also alter the timbre a lot, as I have heard recently.

So I really hope this is true - if it is, I am really close to booking the flight LOL

Well definitely not those super masculine chesty resonance lol (remember it IS a resonance too xD)

When they went over the voice lessons for me to do in three weeks, they specifically stated to not raise the larynx.  They told me to keep the throat relaxed and gave me two different styles of exercises. One was to work with the oral cavity and the second was the nasal cavity to get the correct resonance. They also told me to focus on projecting the voice out in front of the face. When I focus on the projection even this soon into my recovery I can hear a difference.

Quote from: northcountrymassage on August 24, 2014, 10:38:59 PM
When they went over the voice lessons for me to do in three weeks, they specifically stated to not raise the larynx.  They told me to keep the throat relaxed and gave me two different styles of exercises. One was to work with the oral cavity and the second was the nasal cavity to get the correct resonance. They also told me to focus on projecting the voice out in front of the face. When I focus on the projection even this soon into my recovery I can hear a difference.

This. Larynxes get used to jumping upward when speaking because of the need to feminize the pitch. My electro person has noticed this before as unusual, if I try to speak while getting throat work done. It's not natural to massively shift upward for common speech, so these post-op directions sound on-point.

I think I could not stop my larynx from being a bit up. It has just become natural to me over the past 15 years... I think it also just sits a bit higher now if relaxed and I have to push it down to get my "old voice"-
And it is after all simulating a shorter distance between larynx and mouth, which makes a lot of difference. If I try keeping it down and only do the projection and "speaking in the front" part of my voice control, it sounds like a guy trying to talk femme or maybe a gay male or something.
So I am a bit doubtful if that really can be working out like that. Just changing the mouth resonance alone to feminize the voice? Maybe it is somehow enough if the pitch is high enough as even guys with high pitches are getting misgendered on the phone although they have a male resonance, but I would not want to have an androgynous voice again. I have that now at my low pitch already....
It would be interesting to hear of others who had the surgery , if they still do resonance control with the larynx position or really just the change in the articulation ("speaking with the mouth")?

Quote from: anjaq on August 30, 2014, 04:33:47 PM
I think I could not stop my larynx from being a bit up. It has just become natural to me over the past 15 years... I think it also just sits a bit higher now if relaxed and I have to push it down to get my "old voice"-
And it is after all simulating a shorter distance between larynx and mouth, which makes a lot of difference. If I try keeping it down and only do the projection and "speaking in the front" part of my voice control, it sounds like a guy trying to talk femme or maybe a gay male or something.
So I am a bit doubtful if that really can be working out like that. Just changing the mouth resonance alone to feminize the voice? Maybe it is somehow enough if the pitch is high enough as even guys with high pitches are getting misgendered on the phone although they have a male resonance, but I would not want to have an androgynous voice again. I have that now at my low pitch already....
It would be interesting to hear of others who had the surgery , if they still do resonance control with the larynx position or really just the change in the articulation ("speaking with the mouth")?

I think I still do larynx position... I can't help it, I've been doing it for so long

Livvy x

Quote from: anjaq on August 30, 2014, 04:33:47 PM
I think I could not stop my larynx from being a bit up. It has just become natural to me over the past 15 years... I think it also just sits a bit higher now if relaxed and I have to push it down to get my "old voice"-
And it is after all simulating a shorter distance between larynx and mouth, which makes a lot of difference. If I try keeping it down and only do the projection and "speaking in the front" part of my voice control, it sounds like a guy trying to talk femme or maybe a gay male or something.
So I am a bit doubtful if that really can be working out like that. Just changing the mouth resonance alone to feminize the voice?

The larynx matter I'd imagine is because they know a lot of us are used to drastically shifting the larynx in order to speak. This is because we have to do that in order to hit the notes we want. It would be the equivalent of sliding a note on the guitar up to the 12th fret. Imagine if you had to go up to the 12th fret just to play anything decent. Nothing below 12th fret, please. And then, at the 12th, on most guitars you've only got up to like the 17th or 19th fret beyond that. There aren't any more fretted notes. It's pretty intense using the instrument in such a limited fashion, really.

Post-Yeson it would be like only having to slide up to the 5th fret to play the same notes, if you even have to slide at all. Shifting the larynx (pitch) that high post-Yeson should be for phrasing/prosody purposes, as it rightfully should be for us, not a general matter of how one speaks. The notes are on lower shelves. So from what I've read the laryngeal muscles need speech practice in order to for you to really learn and get comfortable with where these new sounds are. Resonance I'm a lot less concerned about though, honestly. I think that will if anything, like the larynx, just inherently require less effort, because of not having this thick timbre & low pitch to account for. Now for beautiful speaking prose? Yes, that will probably take practice, but probably not as much as one is doing now.

I am not sure. I heard now some people who had a VFS and do not use resonance control and they do not sound as good without this as they do with it. So I think while it may be easier, resonance control still is needed - and the shifting of the larynx is something that is not really done for pitch reasons only , is it? I can do the same note with a shifted larynx and with it shifted another way and it sounds different even if the pitch is the same. So that part is about resonance really, not pitch. The pitch seems much more to come from the tension of the vocal chords and to do that some part of the larynx moves up in order to stretch the vocal folds. In that sense you are probably right - doing that stretching and then trying to stick to that tension is really a strain. Which is why I cannot keep a high pitch for too long and rather go down to my regular speaking range but still use resonance control to get a low pitched female voice.

Quote from: anjaq on August 13, 2014, 06:54:05 AM
The video is funny, with the intro. I like the voice - it seems a bit low from swelling - it sounds like you have a laryngitis - a bit lower pitch and some hoarseness. I guess it will just take some rest and it will pass - other than that , it is IMO cleraly female sound and again I notoced that one of the features of this VFS seems to be that the undertones are gone - which is interesting as this is usually ascribed to resonance control. So even if pitch does not go up too much, the change in voice quality may be already worth it. I would like to know however how all of this relates to the botox, which supposedly makes the voice softer as well (Jenny was IIRC suggested to get botox injections every half year or so to keep the voice soft and not have the vocal tremor). Anyways - good to hear this and Hopefully your "surgical laryngitis" will go away soon

Anjaq: from that can I assume that if we don't get have regular botox after surgery we'll have a tremor which wasn't there before surgery?

Hi girls!

I'll add this to to this thread as well...

So I've finally got my pre-op video from Jessie!

It's been really useful for me to hear as I completely forgot to make a recording before my surgery...

@livvykins: totally awesome!

6 days to I hit the 2 month mark and I'm not even remotely close to that :/

Quote from: Teslagirl on September 01, 2014, 05:37:14 PM
Anjaq: from that can I assume that if we don't get have regular botox after surgery we'll have a tremor which wasn't there before surgery?

I was told I do have  a tremor now - so it seems that most of the patients coming to Yeson do have such a termor pre op and thus are given the Botox. I do not think having regular Botox injections beyond the healing period makes sense. It is a characteristic of the voice, if it is strong , maybe this is a good idea, but as I understand it, it does not originate from the surgery but rather is there before and is an issue when it comes to healing the voice